People in the United States continue to face a daunting challenge in the form of data breaches, which might give them the impression that their information is not secure in any business.
The most recent incident to make headlines involves the corporation UnitedLex, which, in March of 2023, was the victim of a digital attack that severely compromised the personal information of all of its customers.
Due to the fact that UnitedLex is a legal data analytics and management organization that was established in 2006, the fact that it failed to protect the data of both its employees and its contractors during the cyber attack is even more problematic for its users.
Because of this, a number of the people who were impacted made the decision to initiate a class action lawsuit against the corporation in order to guarantee that they would be able to recover a portion of the money that they had lost. To begin, let us ask: what exactly is a class action lawsuit?
A class action lawsuit is a type of litigation that is brought against a company or organization by one or more individuals on behalf of a larger group of people who have similar grievances about they.
When the lawsuit is elevated to the status of a class action, it becomes applicable to all individuals who may have been affected in the same manner. The majority of the time, businesses decide to settle these disputes by paying money to class members.
In exchange, the class members give up their chance to take further legal action. In most cases, these agreements involve statements from the firm in which they dismiss any allegations of impropriety.
Those individuals who were impacted by the breach have the opportunity to participate in the case and provide a receipt in order to receive their money back.
Additionally, they are eligible to receive some compensation for the time and money that they would have spent dealing with the consequences of the breach.
This is feasible due to the fact that the corporation has agreed to pay a total of $1.3 million in order to address the charges and not drag out the process any further. This is despite the fact that the company has denied any wrongdoing.
What you need to claim your part in the UnitedLex lawsuit data breach settlement
You will need to provide evidence of your spending in the form of a receipt in order to submit a claim and receive reimbursement for your expenditures.
Account statements, tax records, police reports, and fraud claims are some more ways that you might demonstrate that you have legitimately incurred spending.
It is possible for plaintiffs to receive up to fifteen thousand dollars, but the requirements to receive that amount of money are quite strict. In accordance with the website of the settlement:
For settlement class members, the Settlement Fund will be used to reimburse them for out-of-pocket expenses or losses that can be reasonably traced back to the data breach, up to a maximum of fifteen thousand dollars per individual. Among these include, but are not limited to, the following:
Out-of-pocket fees, expenses, damages, or other charges that have been incurred as a result of identification theft or identity fraud, falsified tax returns, or any other probable misuse of a Settlement Class Member’s personal information;
Out-of-pocket expenses that were incurred after the Data Breach was discovered and were related with changing accounts or participating in other forms of mitigation; these expenses may include charges for notary, fax, mailing, copying, mileage, and long-distance telephone calls;
compensation for expert fees paid out of pocket in order to resolve the data breach; and
After the Data Breach was notified, up until the date that the Settlement Class Member’s Claim was submitted, out-of-pocket purchases of credit monitoring or other mitigating services were reimbursed.
The majority of those who have been affected will not receive as much reimbursement; however, they will most likely receive reimbursement for lost time.
This type of reimbursement is “used to reimburse Settlement Class Members who spent money addressing issues related to the Data Breach for up to twenty (20) hours at twenty-five dollars ($25.00) per hour, totaling $500.00 per individual.”
By Tuesday, November 12, 2024, the time for submitting your claim will have passed.
According to the website of the settlement, “If there is money remaining after reimbursing Settlement Class Members for Out-of-Pocket Expenses, Lost Time, and other Settlement-related obligations, the remaining funds will be split pro rata among participating Settlement Class Members.”
This is the final resort that will be taken. It is important to emphasize that extra cash payments are not promised, and the amount of these payments will be determined by the number of individuals who file claims that are valid.